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‘Pardon Edward Snowden’: White House Petition Picks Up Steam

Daniel Ellsberg, Bradley Manning, and Snowden, three of America’s most famous whistleblowers.

Yesterday, a petition was created on whitehouse.gov asking President Obama to pardon PRISM leaker and government surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

As of 2:26 p.m. Eastern time, the petition had 21,109 signatures.
As of 3:26 p.m. Eastern time, the petition had 23,343 signatures.
As of 4:26 p.m. Eastern time, the petition had 25,360 signatures.
As of 7:01 p.m. Eastern time, the petition had 29,412 signatures.

The petition website, We the People, was created in September 2011 and requires a petition to get 100,000 votes in thirty days in order to get an official response on any issue from the Obama administration. The petition “Pardon Edward Snowden” was created on June 9 and already has over one-fourth of the signatures needed to prompt an official response. It is gaining signatures at a rate of about 2,000 an hour. As of now however, Snowden still has not been officially charged with any crimes. We believe that he will be charged under the Espionage Act like other infamous whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.